Imported Fire Ant eXtension

In 2005, a Community of Practice was formed to develop a nation wide web-based site on imported fire ant management.  The site will be bilingual, and will include frequently asked questions about fire ants, as well as an interactive learning module to provide customized fire ant management advice.  This is part of the National eXtension Initiative.   Kathy Flanders and Bart Drees wrote the proposal for year 1 funding.  Click here to see the Year 1 imported fire ant proposal.  Click here to see the report and proposal for Year 2.

The site was launched in April 2007 at www.extension.org/fire+ants. 

You are invited to become a member of the Community of Practice that is developing the various components of the project.  If you would like to join the Imported Fire Ant Community of Practice, please contact Kathy Flanders or Bart Drees. We will help you get an eXtension User ID, which you will need to access the community workspace.  Alternatively, you can go to people.extension.org to get your eXtension ID.  During the process of setting up your ID, you will be asked what Communities of Practice you would like to join.  You can choose Imported Fire Ants at that time. 

Periodically the imported fire ant Community of  Practice has work sessions.  The next work sessions are set for March 2008 at the SEB ESA Meeting in Jacksonville, FL, and Thursday March 27, 2008 at the Annual Imported Fire Ant Conference.  If you are attending these meetings, and are interested in working on the eXtension project, please try to attend these work sessions.

With the exception of www.extension.org, the eXtension sites are WIKI based.  This means that you are free to jump in and help edit the content of the sites. 

The following list may be helpful:

 www.extension.org is what the general public will see.

 about.extension.org has information about eXtension in general.

 about.extension.org/wiki has further information about each Community of Practice

 people.extension.org is where you go to get an eXtension ID, to update your profile, or to see who else is registered.

You need an eXtension ID to get to the following sites:

 cop.extension.org is where we are inputting information about fire ants.  If you go to the fire ant section, you will see two sections.  The content home has fire ant information that will appear on the public site. The community home has information about the imported fire ant community of practice.  You can check out the Membership List, as well as the Strategic Plan.

 faq.extension.org is where the frequently asked questions live in a database.  The entire database is open to anyone with an eXtension id.  After the questions are edited, they become available to the general public.  Questions marked "Published" have been edited and copy-edited, and are best left alone unless you discover a factual error.  Questions marked "Draft," or that are in various stages of review, are fair game for editing.

 events.extension.org is where you can post an upcoming educational program.

Handout for April 2008 Extension Agent Training